Location-aware data and your mobile A few months ago I spent some time thinking about how to find a better way to get directory data (e.g. phone book listings) onto a mobile phone. I had been experimenting with a GPRS-enabled PDA (aka smartphone), and whilst shopping tried logging onto the Yellow Pages to find a shoe shop. The experience was pretty bad - it took ages, the data was wrong and trying to navigate using a stylus was kind of tedious. There had to be a better way.

My brainwave was - what about if instead of making users ask for specific pieces of data using the error-prone and difficult input methods available via today's phones, we just sent all the data all the time to all of the users? I quickly realised that would be a lot of data, and I wasn't sure that networks would really stand for that. Also there was the problem of continually interrupting the user with text messages, which would be VERY intrusive.

However, the idea of sending data to users that they could just reach out and grab is very powerful. And of course the most obvious criteria for determining what to send is the phone owner's location. It is possible to work out where someone is, based on triangulating their phone. It should be fairly simple to work out a set of listings to send users based on where they are. The data set could be updated as they move.

But the problem of intrusiveness remains, and also there would be some data that users really didn't care about, and conversely some data they did.

So - this is the solution. Your phone is always with you, and it's generally always on. So it sits in your pocket, quietly downloading the location-specific data, but not letting you know that it's doing so. Then, when you are somewhere and you want to know what is around you, you look at your phone and you press a button (or something) that then shows you what is around you in the form of a list:



And then if the user is interested in something they see, select the item using the appropriate number:



In order to make it easier for users, the client would have to start learning what they were interested in and what they weren't, so that after a while the things they are interested in start to always appear at the top of the first screen, and not get hidden in the subsequent pages. I think there would have to be a few principles with this kind of app as well:

1) Data disappears from the phone when the user changes location
2) The system learns, but remains transparent
3) Users decide when to interact - the phone should never demand their attention
4) Data is displayed only according to user preference (no pay-for-placement)
5) The data provider keeps no records of who they send data to

This kind of thing could be used for all sorts of location specific data - shops, train timetables, ticketing. Imagine a pub that could beam out ads for upcoming bands, or a cafe that could advertise it's changing meal specials (breakfast, lunch, dinner). Much better than a static directory listing.

tags: wireless | mobile | advertising | location  ¶ 8:20 PM